The Accidental Universe
The World You Thought You Knew
Alan Lightman
Pantheon Books, $24, 157 pp.

An increasing number of cosmologists now believe in the existence of a multiverse. Multiverse theory holds that, in addition to our Big-Bang universe and its several hundred billion galaxies, there exist countless other universes, undetectable from within our own.

It’s a thrilling prospect; but does a multiverse really exist? Though the theory is based on no actual evidence, Max Tegmark takes it to be a legitimate scientific idea. Indeed, this highly respected MIT particle physicist...

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